Catholic priest who admitted to abusing St. Louis metro area children facing new charges

Fred Lenczycki is facing new charges in St. Louis County.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A Catholic priest who has admitted abusing as many as 30 youths in Illinois, California and Missouri over 25 years faces new charges.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that 74-year-old Fred Lenczycki, of the Chicago suburb of Berkeley, Illinois, was charged Thursday in St. Louis County with two counts each of deviate sexual assault and sodomy. Charging documents say he abused two boys in the 1990s in the St. Louis suburb of Bridgeton.

He was removed from the ministry in 2002, when he was charged with sexually abusing three boys in the mid-1980s in Illinois. Prosecutors say he was transferred to Missouri after the parents of one of those victims complained.

He isn't yet in custody in Missouri. No attorney is listed for him in online court records.